First-Run Classic

For more than two hours, she ran alone, the way she liked it, the way she did during her solitary training runs at home in Freeport, Maine.

The Marina Freeway became her personal diamond lane for a lonely three miles, the pack far behind her and no spectators permitted along that stretch of the course.

The giant mural bearing her likeness joined her for a few moments, placed there by her shoe-company sponsor, providing silent inspiration.

Joan Benoit grew accustomed to the pace and quiet as she neared the end of the Olympic Games’ first women’s marathon on Aug. 5, 1984, the Coliseum coming into view. And as it did, a strange swelling sound grew louder with every stride.

It was the anxious rumbling of a massive crowd waiting for her inside the stadium.

Suddenly, much to her surprise, Benoit would be running solo no more.

“It was Sunday morning,” she said. “Who’s going to get up Sunday morning and come watch a bunch of women run? I didn’t really expect many people here. And then when I saw the people, I went, ‘Whoa ... ‘

“And then I said just hold it together and stay on your feet. I was reminded of what Bruce Jenner had said -- feet, don’t fail me now. Because I really did feel wobbly at that moment.”

Besides making history with her gold-medal run of 2 hours 24 minutes 52 seconds, Benoit also set a tone for later in the race, when Swiss runner Gabriela Andersen-Scheiss took wobbly to a level that turned the crowd’s cheers to anguished gasps.

Suffering from heat prostration, Andersen-Scheiss limped and lurched around the track, stopping and restarting and waving off medical assistance -- which would have meant her immediate disqualification -- as she required 5 minutes 44 seconds to complete the final 400 meters. As soon as she hit the finish line, Andersen-Scheiss fell into the arms of three medical staffers.

Much to the relief of the crowd, Benoit and the sport of women’s marathon running, Andersen-Scheiss recovered quickly. Two hours later, she was back in the Olympic village having a meal. Ten hours later, she met the press, saying: “My mind wasn’t working too good. I always thought [the finish] was going to be right there -- right there. But it was always longer than I realized.”

Those two scenes -- Benoit triumphantly entering the stadium, Andersen-Scheiss struggling to finish -- encapsulated the extremes of the Olympic experience, the thrill of victory soon followed by the agony of defeat.

The race winner, known as Benoit Samuelson since her marriage to Scott Samuelson shortly after the ’84 Games, said the track officials had a very difficult call to make with Anderson-Scheiss.

“That’s just such a tough one,” she said. “If I was that close and somebody yanked me off, I would have been upset. But at the same time, if I had died, or if she had died, you know, it would have been all over for the officials -- and probably track and field at the Olympics.

“It was just such a hard, hard call. And I don’t know how cognizant she was at the time, whether she fended the officials off who were pulling her off. I’m glad everything worked out OK.”

Benoit remembers her own run, then the third-fastest women’s marathon in history, as “one of the least taxing marathons that I’d ever run, to this day. I was just on. And I don’t take that for granted. I was just lucky. I mean, I was just on.”

Entering the race, Benoit had all but conceded the gold medal to Norway’s Grete Waitz. Only 17 days before the U.S. trials, Benoit underwent arthroscopic surgery on her right knee.

“I knew if I had a good race I would be in contention for a medal,” she said. “Grete Waitz, in my mind, was going to win the event.”

Fourteen minutes into the race, Benoit pulled away from the pack. To her surprise, Waitz did not come with her. Nor did anyone else.

“I like to run by myself,” Benoit said. “I find that when I run with other women, they draw my energy, and I don’t like that. I feel like I’m being depleted a bit, faster than I would if I was running by myself.

“So I just got out and didn’t feel like I was running particularly fast, but at the first water station I opted not to take water and to get out of the pack, because I was compromising my stride in the midst of the pack. I knew it wasn’t my most efficient stride, so I just went for it, decided to run my own race.”

Waitz could never completely close the gap, finishing second with a time of 2:26:18.

Benoit said she thought Waitz “ran a great race, but, it was the first women’s marathon and it was L.A. and it had the potential to get really hot.... I think they thought my pace was too fast. For back then, [2:24:52] was a fast time.”

Twenty years later, Benoit still runs marathons. She planned to compete in this year’s U.S. Olympic trials, but an Achilles’ injury sidelined her.

During an April trip to Los Angeles, Benoit said she was gladdened to see so many runners and joggers on the streets.

“To see people running in the morning out here when I’m out makes me think that it’s an OK sport and what I did in L.A. was something that meant something to other people,” she said. “Running is a very accessible sport, and I think people here especially in Southern California take running and fitness seriously. That’s very satisfying.”